When It Starts to Snow
by Jaywings
Summary: Elsa receives a mysterious letter that leads both her and Anna into danger. One-shot.


A/N: So I went to see Frozen, and the next day I started writing a one-shot. This is actually the first fanfiction that I've done for a movie. It was fun! I would like to thank BabyCharmander for beta-reading this and helping me make it somewhat presentable, and I'd like to thank the Frozen wiki page for its plentiful information.

The title of this is just half a line from a song that I couldn't get out of my head, but it seemed to fit all right.

* * *

The gates of Arendelle Castle had been open for six months. People could come and go as they pleased—which they did often, for it hadn't taken long for stories of "the Snow Queen of Arendelle" to spread far and wide. In every land there was talk of the extravagant parties that the royal siblings held on important dates, during which occasions the Snow Queen herself would transform the castle courtyards into beautiful ice-skating rinks no matter what the time of year. There was always music, dancing, talk, and laughter. After years of hiding in solitude, Queen Elsa was finally meeting her subjects, and they loved her.

The sun had set hours ago. Elsa stood on one of the balconies with her hands resting lightly on the railing, her eyes closed as she let the frigid December wind play her braided hair across her shoulders. Tiny, invisible ice crystals stung her cheeks, hands, and nose, but rather than being made uncomfortable by it, she relished the feeling. Somehow the chill that descended naturally upon the Earth in winter had always been more comforting, more _magical_ than the frost and snow conjured from the air by her own hand. She breathed calmly, evenly, her chilled breath exiting her lungs without creating a cloud under her nose. Her face softened, the corners of her mouth tilting upwards. It felt _so good_ to smile, _really_ smile, not fake it like she had been forced to for thirteen years.

She opened her eyes and gazed down over Arendelle. What she could see of her kingdom was cloaked in darkness, with the soft, warm glow of candles and log fires flickering through the windows of every house. Above, the stars and moon were obscured by a thick blanket of clouds from which snowflakes drifted down. The world was quiet but for the wind tickling her ears. No human voices could be heard, for which she was grateful. While Elsa was learning to enjoy the company of others, something she had been denied for the majority of her life, she enjoyed her solitude as well. Perhaps it came innately with the powers she'd been born with. Maybe the feelings were residual from the time she'd been forced to spend alone as a child locked in her room. Either way, she felt calmest and most at peace when she was by herself.

There was a thin layer of frost on the railing. Elsa traced her finger over it, leaving a trail and stirring the crystals into the air. They sparkled, shimmering, twirling around her fingers and then sailing off into the dark sky. She stepped back from the railing, wriggling her fingers and enjoying the feeling of the wind against the bare skin. Why had she _ever_ worn gloves for so long?

She was about to turn and go back inside when running footsteps caught her attention and she looked sharply at the door leading to the balcony.

"Your Majesty!" someone cried, dashing onto the balcony and skidding on the icy ground. Elsa caught the flailing woman before she could fall, letting her regain her balance and flicking her hand at the floor. The ice on the balcony receded, creating a dry area for the two to stand on. "Thank you," the woman said breathlessly, pushing her hair back into the band around her head. It was Gerda, a servant who had been employed at the castle since before Elsa was born, and her cheeks were flushed with excitement.

"Gerda!" Elsa said with a light laugh. "What is it?"

Gerda, speechless, thrust a rolled-up message at her. Elsa took the paper from her and unrolled it, reading through it. Her eyes widened. Her hands turned numb, the paper slipping through her fingers and drifting to the ground before the wind picked up and caught it, lifting it up and swirling it around their heads in a sudden flurry of snow.

Gerda took a step backward and spoke up in a timid voice. "Queen Elsa?"

Elsa blinked, snapping out of her trance-like state. She located the notice, still whirling around their heads, and plucked it from the air with her fingertips. Her eyes flew over it again and the breath caught in her throat. Her face didn't quite know what to do—her expression hovered somewhere between a stunned, hopeful smile and sheer incredulity. Wetness glistened in her eyes but she lifted her chin, forcing the tears back, and stared at Gerda over the paper. "Did you read this?" she asked, struggling to keep her voice level.

Gerda nodded, her hands pressed to her mouth and her eyes sparkling. She lowered her hands slightly. "I did—I'm sorry, Your Majesty, it was meant to come directly to you, but I thought, as a matter of safety—I should—" She let out a breathless, joyful laugh, reaching out and clasping Elsa's wrist in her hands. Elsa jumped at the contact and Gerda immediately let go, jerking back as if realizing what she had just done. "Sorry! I'm just—Do you—do you think it's _true?_"

Elsa glanced around, swallowing, then looked back at the handmaiden and crumpled the paper in a tightly clenched hand. "Come on," she said.

Normally it wouldn't do for a queen to run, but Elsa tore down the castle corridors anyway. Gerda, doing her best to keep pace, said nothing about it.

"Where's Anna?" Elsa asked without breaking stride, skidding around a corner and going down the main staircase two steps at a time. Her glittering, ice-woven cape flapped behind her and almost caught under Gerda's feet several times. Elsa reached to her throat and snapped the icy clasp binding the cape around her shoulders, allowing it to drift away and dissipate into frost. She'd make a new one later.

"Anna's still out with Kristoff," Gerda replied, panting as they reached the bottom of the stairs and ran out the castle doors. "They've been out since noon, the lovebirds." She gave a light chuckle. Outside, the wintry air settled around them once more and prickled on Elsa's skin.

Elsa frowned. "Did you tell anyone else about the message?"

"No one."

"Not even Kai?" Kai had been a servant as long as Gerda had, and the two were nearly inseparable.

"I came directly to you."

Elsa nodded, her heart thudding in her ears. They had reached the castle gates. Elsa slid to a stop just inside, throwing out her arm to halt Gerda as well. The gates were wide open, as they had been for the last half-year. She opened her hand and unfurled the message again, reading it over for a third time and still hardly daring to believe the words written in front of her own eyes in a neat scrawl.

'_Most respected Queen Elsa of Arendelle,_

'_There is something of the utmost importance to report to you. I wish I could have told you sooner, but I needed to make absolutely sure of it and get all of my facts straight. In short, the former King and Queen of Arendelle live._

'_It has recently come to my attention that they did not lose their lives at sea, but were instead washed ashore on an island near the shipwreck._

'_I'm sorry for the unorthodoxy of this missive. I know this must come as a shock to you, but as the heir and queen of Arendelle I believe you had a right to know. The king and queen may be in peril. I cannot give you all of the information here for fear of this letter falling into the wrong hands. I will have to give it in person outside of Arendelle, near the gates to the kingdom. Please hurry, as there is little time to lose._

'_Kindest regards,'_

There was a signature at the bottom that proved impossible to read.

"Who gave you this message?" Elsa asked before setting foot outside the gates.

Gerda shook her head. "I didn't recognize him."

Elsa exhaled. "Him? …All right. I'll go see what this is about, see what truth there is in all of this." She pressed the paper into Gerda's hands, closing the handmaiden's fingers over it. "Tell no one about this message—not yet."

"Your Majesty, it's not safe!" Gerda fretted, taking the queen's arm again. "What if it's a trap? Some sort of trick?"

Elsa sighed, turning to the woman and gently taking her hands. "Gerda, you must understand," she said. "This isn't just about the King and Queen of Arendelle. It's about my _parents_. And Anna's. If there's any way that they could be alive, I have to find out. Don't you see?"

Tears really were gathering in Gerda's eyes now. "Yes, I do, and I want to believe it too, Els—Queen Elsa. You have no idea how much I want to believe it. But it can't—they were kil—"

"Their bodies were never found!" Elsa interrupted. She released her hold on Gerda's hands and turned to the gates. "I'll be fine, Gerda. Lest you forget, I have much stronger control over my powers now—_and _we're in my element." She smiled drily. "I can take care of myself, don't worry."

"And if something _should_ happen?" Gerda was clutching the message to her chin.

"Then get Anna. She could save herself, me, and half the kingdom before the rest of us realized what was going on."

* * *

The wind picked up as Elsa stood outside the boundaries of the kingdom, waiting for any sign of the person she was supposed to meet. The minutes ticked by and she began to pace over the snow. Her hair, bound in a long, platinum-blond braid down her shoulder, whipped around her head and her dress billowed about her feet. The wind had begun to roar. No, no, she couldn't allow herself to conjure up a storm. Not right now. She clutched her hands together and recalled the message, which by that point she had memorized verbatim, holding onto every word and embracing the warm feeling they invoked.

She had never considered the possibility that her parents may have _survived_ their shipwreck. Everyone had reported that the ship and its passengers had been swallowed up by the sea and lost forever. Now, though, she realized that in the back of her mind she'd been hoping against hope all the same—yes, _hope_. The message had not only given her a sense of urgency, but it had given her hope as well. She filled herself with the feeling. Gradually, the winds battering her died down, and the cold night stilled.

She glanced around. She was in the spot that the message had mandated, but there still didn't seem to be anyone nearby. Had the mysterious messenger already gone?

"Hello? Is anyone there?" she called. She came to a standstill and listened hard, but no sound came. There really was no one around, _anywhere_. A leaden weight seemed to have formed in her heart, growing heavier with every passing moment that failed to reveal the person who had written the message. She sighed, her gaze flicking down at the fallen snow. She'd have to go back. She couldn't just stand around here all night. She'd have to go back to the castle and form a search party to—

Something touched her neck with sharp pinprick. Tilting her head, she identified the object and stiffened. It was the tip of a sword.

"Who are you?" she asked without turning around, staring straight ahead without moving, though her hands clenched into fists.

A hushed voice spoke in her ear. "Put your hands behind your back, Queen, and no funny business with ice."

Snowflakes had already begun to shower down on the two of them from seemingly nowhere. Icicles threatened to sprout from the ground but Elsa struggled to keep her emotions in check, and the ice stayed back.

"I am the queen of Arendelle, and you will release me," she said. The sword tip migrated around to the front of her neck.

"Yeah, I know you're the queen of Arendelle. Hands behind your back," the attacker said. Elsa couldn't identify the voice, both due to his hushed tones and the rushing winds growing around them.

"Are you the one who sent me the message?" she asked.

"I'm not going to ask you again," the person said impatiently, ignoring her question.

Elsa drew in a long breath. _It really was a trap._

She slowly moved her hands behind her back, still not attempting to look behind her. The sword moved away from her neck and in an instant she whirled around, eyes ablaze. Spikes of ice shot out of the ground in a tight semicircle around her—she hadn't really meant to call them up, especially not ones this _large_, but at the moment she found she didn't care. Her attacker was nowhere in sight and she took a step back in confusion, only to be wrenched backwards as her arms were yanked behind her. She shrieked, struggling to pull away. Ice spread and frosted over the ground all around her now, the brewing snowstorm whirling so fast that she could hardly see. A sound resembling shattering glass crashed down on her ears as her attacker slashed through the ice spires that erupted from the ground as if of their own free will.

Then the man seemed to have reached an exceptionally strong ice spike, as there was the sound of splintering metal and a cry of, "_My sword!_"

Elsa gave a mirthless smile, which disappeared in an instant. Someone came up behind her and caught her arms, wrapping something rough and scratchy around her hands. Her ice attacks were significantly hampered, though they did not cease, and after her hands were covered her wrists were bound together and tied so tightly that she could hardly twitch her fingers.

"Who _are_ you?" she gasped again, nearly blind in the blizzard. Her captor let go of her and she tried to run, only to be pulled back. Some sort of cloth flew around her mouth and pulled tight, wrenching her backwards and gagging her.

She was hopelessly confused and disoriented by her own storm, and try as she might she couldn't regain control in her panic. More ice spires climbed out of the ground, a reddish tinge glowing from within them, though the ice itself darkened to a glistening black.

The gag was tied around her head as she was dragged backwards, kicking and struggling against the bonds, slipping and skidding on the ice that spread and encrusted the ground every time one of her feet made contact with it.

"Elsa? ELSA!" someone screamed. Elsa's ice-blue eyes widened when, through the whirling snow, she caught a glimpse of her frantic sister—strawberry-blonde braids flying about her head in the wind, her face betraying the stark terror that Elsa herself felt. Elsa struggled to shout for her not to come any closer but the words came out garbled and unintelligible through the gag, which was hardening and crusting over with frost. The storm grew quickly obscured the sight of Anna again as her captor continued to pull her backwards, and then a dark cloth was pulled over her eyes and quickly tied in place. All light cut out and she was pushed backwards onto something rough and wooden that rocked a little when she fell onto it. A sled? Whatever it was, some sort of barrier was lowered over the end and kept her from being able to climb back down.

The person had released her and she struggled to sit up, yanking her arms in an attempt to free them from their bonds.

"ELSA—AAAHHH!" The shout, once again from Anna, turned into a yelp on the last syllable. Over the roaring wind Elsa could hear some sort of scuffling sound. Moments later a body was shoved onto the sled next to her. Elsa couldn't see who it was, of course, but with a terrible feeling she thought she could guess.

"This is treason!" she tried to shout, but the words were a mess. The sled jerked, and then they were moving, faster and faster, farther away from the edges of the town. Away from Arendelle. Behind her blindfold, Elsa's enraged look transitioned to one of fear. Her bound hands shook, the inside of their covering frosting over with ice.

The person next to her wasn't moving. Elsa wondered for a horrible instant if they were dead. But, no, that was stupid—whoever had captured them, he wouldn't have—there was no way—and her fellow captive _couldn't_ be Anna, she wouldn't accept that. She had refrained from telling Anna about the letter for this very reason. If Anna had been taken captive, especially due to _her_ mistake, _her _misguidance, she'd never forgive herself, she'd never—

Elsa curled up, shivering from fear rather than cold. Suddenly she was eight years old again, screaming for her parents with her unconscious, freezing sister cradled in her arms—and then she was just a few days into her reign, shackled in the dungeon and awaiting inevitable execution for crimes she had never meant to commit, lost and nearly helpless while her frenzied and fear-induced powers grew out of control—

_Some queen I turned out to be._ She shuddered. _Some _sister_ I turned out to be_.

The person next to her stirred. Elsa's heart seemed to stop entirely when the voice she wanted to hear least at that moment spoke up next to her ear.

"Eltha?" The voice was fearful, uncertain, and muffled, presumably by a gag like Elsa's. "Eltha? Iffat uu?"

"Anna," Elsa replied, horror-stricken, though the word came out more like "Amma."

"Werr ahwee?" the voice asked.

Elsa bit her lip. "I don't know." _On a sled riding to some unknown destination_, she added silently, knowing the sentence would never translate until she got that loathsome thing out of her mouth.

"Whar ee gomfa do?"

"…I don't know."

What could she do when she couldn't see anything and her hands were covered? Could she even still use her powers effectively? What if they went haywire and did more harm than good?

"Elsa," Anna said next to her, speaking slowly and as clearly as she could around the gag, "do the magic!"

Elsa gasped. She hadn't heard those words in thirteen years.

"Right," she said, sitting up straighter and closing her eyes, concentrating._ Right. What are we going to do? We're going to cut this little trip short_.

Once she cut herself off from distraction she could _feel_ the snow surrounding the sled on all sides. She could tell how deep it was and sense it shifting under the sled and the hooves of the horse that tirelessly pulled them onward. How long had they been travelling? _Far too long_. She gritted her teeth and envisioned the snow under them freezing together, creating jagged chunks of ice that stuck out of the ground at varying angles. To her surprise and delight, the snow around them responded to her commands. The sled jerked back and forth, the runners scraping against the ice and tipping them dangerously, but they fell back upright with a bump—it hadn't been enough, not quite enough.

"What's going on?" someone, presumably the sled driver and their captor, demanded. Elsa furrowed her brow and hunched over. She visualized the sled, then conjured up the image of an enormous wave of snow careening into the side of it.

There was the loud whinny of a horse and a shout. The sled lurched, keeling over; the wood groaned in protest, cracking and snapping. It fell onto its side and both girls let out muffled screams as they were thrown clear, landing in a snow bank. The sled continued to creak as it tipped over. Elsa couldn't see it, and she couldn't see where Anna was, but based on the sounds she could tell about where the sled was located—she jerked her head up, opening her eyes again, and sent up a flurry of ice and snow that swirled around the sled until it was swarmed by ice and frozen in place mid-tilt. At least now there was no danger of it toppling over on top of them.

Elsa, bent nearly double from the roaring wind, plunged her bound and wrapped-up hands into the snow. Little claws of ice grew forward, ensnaring the burlap around her hands and tearing through it until she could scrabble her fingers in the snow. She grabbed a handful of the powdery snow that shifted at her command and reshaped into a long, flat icicle, sharp as a knife, between her fingers. She gripped it, flipped it over, and sawed it back and forth over the ropes binding her hands.

"Eltha!" Anna cried from somewhere, the word still muffled but clear enough.

"I'm coming!" Elsa tried to yell back. At last the ropes fell away from her hands and she shook off the shredded burlap that still covered them, immediately reaching up and ripping the blindfold and then the gag from her head. "_ANNA!_"

It was dark. Snow was whirling around the entire area in a cyclone. Some feet away the sled was encased in ice mid-tilt. There didn't seem to be anyone around and the town they had left was nowhere in sight. There was only snow—endless, blinding snow. "Anna!"

Her sister materialized from the storm, stumbled, and fell down next to her, staring up at her with wild eyes. She was wearing a blindfold but it had somehow slipped onto her forehead.

"Anna!" Elsa, still holding her makeshift ice knife, knelt down and hacked through the ropes on Anna's hands. As soon as her hands were free Anna reached up and pulled out the gag, then yanked the blindfold off her head. It got tangled up in her braids and she snorted in frustration, trying to wrench it out.

"Are you okay?" Elsa asked, tossing the knife to the ground and reaching over to help Anna free her hair from the blindfold.

"I'm fine," Anna gasped. She finally jerked the blindfold out of her hair and flung it into the blizzard. "You?"

"Fine." Elsa climbed to her feet, looking all around. "Did you see who did this to us?"

"Who do you think?" Anna demanded, an anguished look on her face. "It was—"

A man appeared out of the snow, stumbling toward them. Even in the dark and the storm, Elsa recognized him immediately, and her look hardened. "Hans."

"I'm sorry!"

To the shock of both sisters, Anna's former fiancé fell to his knees in front of them. He stared up at them with windswept, frost-encrusted hair and tear-streaked cheeks. "This wasn't my idea, I _swear! _Please, Elsa, call off the storm!"

Both girls towered over the distraught man, Anna looking at him with something like murderous intent in her eyes. "That's _Queen _Elsa to you," she said.

Elsa herself regarded him with a cooler demeanor. "What do you mean, this _wasn't _your idea?" she asked, her voice as cold as the ice dancing at her fingertips.

"It was my brothers!" Hans said desperately. "I'm not the only one who wanted this kingdom! They wanted me to capture both of you—well, mostly you, Elsa."

"LIAR!" Anna scooped up a mound of snow and flung it into Hans' face. He flinched away.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's hear what he has to say." Elsa ushered her sister away from him.

Anna sucked in a breath. "Sorry, sorry, got carried away there." She backed up a few steps. "I'll just… sit over here." She sat down with a _crunch_ in the snow, then jumped up again. "Bad idea! Too cold. Carry on, Elsa."

Elsa turned back to Hans and stared stonily down at him. "Prince Hans, you are aware of the crimes you have already committed against my kingdom, my sister, and _me_. And now you have abducted us both from our own kingdom. Please explain."

Hans slowly got back to his feet, wiping snow off his face and still wincing in the wind. "Wow, you, er, sound so _regal_. It was my brothers, though, all right?" Frowning, he stepped forward, though Elsa simply narrowed her eyes and didn't move. "They were going to kill me if I didn't bring you back. They're the _real_ masterminds here. I'm just an innocent victim. Who do you think delivered that message to your servant? My third oldest brother has been living in Arendelle under your notice for weeks waiting for this moment! He helped me capture both of you and then went back into hiding—but why my brothers want you, I don't know!"

"Your brothers were supposed to administer justice to you in your own kingdom," Elsa said, hesitating. Perhaps Hans wasn't the black sheep of his family, as she had thought. Had one of his brothers really helped him commit this new act of treason? Or was it all just another lie?

Hans continued advancing. "They decided against that pretty quickly when they heard about your powers," he said. Out of the corner of her eye Elsa caught sight of him reaching toward a little scabbard on his belt.

She drew back. "Anna's right. You're lying!"

Hans stopped at that, a sadistic smile starting to slide across his face. "Fine, Elsa. But only about some things. Every word about my brothers is true. And it's not just _them_, either. You ever talk to the other kingdoms much? You should hear what they say about you—_WITCH QUEEN!_" He lunged forward, and Elsa saw, almost too late, the glinting knife clutched in his hand. She drew backwards, ducking, a wall of ice springing from the ground in front of her. The knife hit it with a _clink_, bouncing off in a shower of ice shavings.

A snowball, flung through the air, smacked into Hans' hand and knocked the knife away, sending it spinning to the ground where it vanished from sight in the snowstorm.

"Stop messing with my sister!" Anna yelled, another hastily-made snowball raised threateningly.

"Your _sister_ is nothing but a monster with a crown!" Hans said back, gesturing with one hand at the ice mound that had saved Elsa's life. "Hey Elsa, remember the letter you got? 'Most respected queen of Arendelle'? It made me physically _sick_ to write that sentence." He addressed Anna once more. "I bet she's not even human—she _can't_ be!"

Anna gasped, stepping back. "What? Of course she is!"

The ice wall split in two, the pieces sliding apart to reveal Elsa with her arms spread, a livid glow lighting her eyes. She stepped forward lightly, the train of her light blue ice crystal dress trailing along the ground behind her.

"The only times I become a monster," she said softly, the menace in her words causing Hans to stumble back and then fall to the ground, "are when people like _you_ threaten the things I hold dear."

She raised one hand, and the winds stopped. The snow picked up by the cyclone settled back to the ground, and the night was still. Then she turned her piercing gaze back to the cowering traitor in front of her. "You will come back to Arendelle with us, and you will face justice in _my_ kingdom this time."

"Yes, yes, of course, but you should know that my brothers won't stop until they get this kingdom," Hans said. He was scooting backwards in the snow, scrabbling around for something. Then he stopped. "And another thing—"

Elsa raised one eyebrow questioningly, and saw the shine of something in his hand again. She drew another sheet of ice forward to protect herself but Hans turned away from her and faced Anna instead. He flung his hand forward, sending something shimmering and sparkling through the air. It was a knife—the one Elsa herself had created. It sliced toward its target and made its mark. Anna cried out, falling backwards in the snow. Elsa screamed her name, racing to her. Hans jumped to his feet and ran as well, grabbing the reins of the horse that had been pulling the sled.

Elsa reached Anna to find her lying on her back in shock, though she wasn't fatally wounded. The knife had missed her neck by inches and slashed her shoulder.

"Your sorcery will be the death of you both!" Hans called, swinging astride his horse. "And if not, then the wolves will get you!" The horse reared up on both hind legs and then leaped away, running at a full gallop in the direction it had been bringing them.

"_Hans!_" Elsa yelled. Ice spikes shot up in the horse's path but horse and rider deftly avoided them, and soon they vanished in the darkness. She turned her attention back to Anna, who was sitting up. "Oh, Anna…"

"I'm all right," Anna said, inspecting her bleeding shoulder, but it was clear that she wasn't. Elsa scrounged about until she found the black cloth that had previously been used to blindfold her.

She brought it over, gingerly tying it around Anna's shoulder. "Is that a little better?"

Anna cracked a smile. "Yeah. Thanks."

Elsa helped her to her feet, and the two of them stood side by side, gazing in the direction that their beloved Arendelle lay.

Anna coughed as if trying to shrug off her injury. "Well, hm, that was interesting!" she said. "It could've been worse."

_Not by much_, Elsa thought.

"It shouldn't take us too long to get back, right?" Anna continued. "We could race, if you wanted."

Elsa, still reeling from what had just happened, had no desire whatsoever to race. However, she couldn't help smiling at her younger sister's unbounded optimism. "That hardly seems fair."

Anna was already trying to run, going much slower than usual due to the pain of her wounded shoulder. She snorted, and, looking back, called, "Why? Worried you'll lose?"

* * *

Dawn broke over the horizon soon after the two decided to stop and rest for a while. Anna was shivering, clutching her arms and fighting to keep warm. As soon as they decided to stop, the ice and snow on the ground beneath them melted away. A curved overhang of ice grew up and around them, sheltering them from the wind. Other than that, however, Elsa was at a bit of a loss as to what else she could do to help her sister.

Anna sat with her knees pulled to her chest. "I wish we had a fire," she teased, shifting the makeshift bandage on her shoulder. Elsa smiled sheepishly.

"That's a little out of my range of abilities," she said. She crouched down next to her sister, though she couldn't even provide any shared body heat. Anna laughed, but hugged her knees a little tighter.

It was quiet for a moment, and Elsa decided to ask the question that had been nagging at her for a while. "What made you come after me?" she said. "I was being tied up, and… there you were. I thought you were out with Kristoff."

"I wasn't with Kristoff _that_ long!" Anna nudged her playfully. "I was taking a walk and it started storming, and I thought I heard you scream—" She frowned, glancing at her sister. "What were _you_ doing out there?"

"Oh." Elsa shuffled around, glancing to the side, down, anywhere but at her sister. "…I got a message telling me to go there. It's not important."

"Message? You mean the one Hans was talking about? So it was a trap! What did the letter say?"

Elsa squeezed her eyes shut. "Anna—"

"Come on, Elsa, now you're scaring me. What did it say?!"

She snapped her eyes back open, finally turning back around to look her sister full in the face. "It said Mother and Father were still alive."

Anna's eyes widened. "What?"

"I went to see if it was true, and you saw how that turned out."

"But Mama and Papa—but you said—that sounds _pretty darn important_ to _me!_"

"But it wasn't real!" Elsa slammed both palms to the ground, the dirt under her hands icing over again. "The letter was _fake!_ It was just a ruse to get me out of the kingdom. Not a word of it was true." Small icicles, like crystallized stalagmites, grew out of the ground around them.

Anna flicked one with her forefinger, avoiding Elsa's gaze. "All right, but you didn't know that. Why did you have to go alone? Why didn't you send someone else?"

"Anna, you know I couldn't have done that," Elsa sighed. If she had, that person may well have been attacked by Hans in her place. But she knew her sister wasn't suggesting that she should have put someone else in danger—she was only frustrated, and worried.

"But why didn't you tell _me?_" Anna still didn't look up, though she didn't sound angry or even upset. She simply sounded hollow.

Elsa shifted over, gazing at her and then looking away again. "I'm sorry. But the message was addressed to me. It was my duty. And I—" She turned away from her sister, closing her eyes. "Anna, I didn't want to get your hopes up, in case it turned out that—I'm sorry."

She felt a hand on her shoulder. Glancing up, she found Anna looking at her without saying a word. _Neither_ of them said anything. Ice blue eyes met their twins of a duller shade for a long moment. Then they fell into a hug, both shaking with the tears that neither of them wanted to shed.

"I didn't even go to their funeral," Elsa whispered.

"You were scared," Anna said. "It doesn't mean it affected you any less. But you don't have to live in fear anymore."

Elsa pulled back, starting to present an argument for that, but Anna cut her off. "You know what Hans said? Don't listen to him. He's a stinker and a liar. He's ten times the monster he says _you_ are."

Elsa smiled, tucking a stray lock of blond hair behind her ear. "Thank you."

"You're wel—" Anna said, but broke off at the sudden sound of growling. They whipped their heads around for the source of the noise. It came from above their heads, on top of the curved wall of ice that Elsa had conjured.

"Wolves," Elsa hissed as both girls climbed to their feet, staring at the dark, wavery form on the ice above them.

Anna glanced out of their shelter at the lightening sky. The sun was rising. "But aren't they nocturnal?"

"That's not stopping this one." Both girls backed away, keeping an eye on the shape. At the sound of yet more growling they turned around again, spotting a group of sleek, gray-pelted wolves stalking toward them in a semicircle. The wolf that had climbed on top of the ice wall jumped down in front of them, hackles rising. The sun filtered through its coarse fur, turning the dark gray of its coat to silver. Flecks of spit dribbled from its snarling muzzle and dripped into the snow.

"Stay by me!" Elsa commanded, drawing Anna closer. One of the wolves bounded forward but a large ice spire erupted in front of it and it shied away with a whine. Snarling, the rest of the pack streaked toward them, snow flying from their paws. Elsa plunged her hand forward and drew it through the air, directing a wall of ice to rise from the ground in front of the ring of wolves. Ice spikes emerged from it, bristling down at them, though several tenacious wolves managed to scrabble over the wall and loped toward the sisters once again.

Drawing the hem of her gown to one side, Elsa stomped her foot on the ground. A ring of blue ice spread under the sisters. She drew her hand up through the air and the ring became a pillar, rising up until Elsa and Anna towered above the ravenous canines.

"Good idea! Oh, oh, now make a slide!" Anna said.

Elsa whipped her head around and stared at her incredulously. "What?!"

"A slide! That way!" Anna pointed in the direction of Arendelle, the opposite of where the wolves were coming from. Elsa hesitated for a second, then waved her hands. A long mound of ice rose toward them, the top smoothing over and forming an incline toward the kingdom.

"Come on!" Anna took Elsa's wrist and ran to the ice slide, jumping forward and attempting to slide on both feet down the incline. She had to flail her arms in order to keep her balance, letting go of Elsa.

"Anna!" Elsa called. She stepped onto the ice slide, watching her sister slip farther down it, then set her jaw and pushed off. Anna flailed again, then slipped and ended up sliding on her back. Elsa bent lower, increasing her speed, ice shavings flying up from her feet as she reached Anna. She helped her sister to her feet, laughing a little. The two were flying down the slide so fast that their hair streamed out behind them. Anna's eyes were narrowed, water coursing from them in little rivulets from the wind's sting. Both sisters crouched low, gripping each other's arms and leaning on each other for balance.

"This is fun! We should do this more often!" Anna laughed. Elsa laughed, too, though worry began to gnaw at her. She wondered how long she would be able to keep up the slide. She turned her head and, a long distance away, saw the lithe shapes of the wolf pack still cutting through the snow after them.

"Elsa!" Anna shrieked, pulling back and yanking Elsa's arm. Elsa whirled around and realized too late that her moment of distraction had kept her from maintaining the smooth surface of the slide. A jagged piece of ice stuck out directly in front of her and though she tried to stop her downward descent, her feet slammed into it and she flipped forward, crashing her head onto the edge of the slide. She tried to grab onto it to keep from tumbling off, scrabbling weakly at the edge, but blackness encroached upon her vision… and then she was falling.

* * *

Elsa landed on the ground with a _crunch_ of snow and lay there limply.

"Elsa!" Anna cried, slipping backwards on the ice slide and skidding around to the edge. She pulled herself over it and dropped off, landing with a grunt before climbing back up and hurrying through the snow to Elsa's side. "Elsa?"

Her sister made no response. She was unconscious. Anna knelt by her, pressing her fingers to Elsa's neck. There was still a pulse.

"Elsa, come on, wake up," she begged, shaking Elsa's shoulders before snatching her hands back when she realized it might not be a good idea to _shake_ someone who'd been knocked out. "The wolves might catch up with us, or something else might happen—Elsa, _please_."

At her words Elsa gasped and her eyes fluttered open, staring blankly ahead for a second. As if coming to her senses, she darted her gaze around, wincing and breathing heavily. "Anna? Where—What's—"

"You're okay!" Anna cried. She reached down and helped the queen back to her feet. As soon as Elsa put weight on her left leg, however, she cried out and fell back to the ground. Anna wilted. "You're—_not _okay. Can you stand at all? Can you walk?"

"Yes—sorry," Elsa said through gritted teeth, standing up again with one and braced against the ice slide. She took a few limping steps forward, though her cheeks were tinged green and her eyes watered. She also had a nasty-looking bump on the side of her head, near her temple. "We have to keep going, but… let's not slide this time." She cracked a weak smile that turned into a grimace.

"Elsa, here," Anna said, coming over to Elsa's left side and slinging her sister's arm over her shoulder. She drew a sharp intake of breath through her teeth at the sudden pressure on the gash on her shoulder. Elsa, concerned, shifted her arm under Anna's shoulder instead. Anna sighed gratefully and allowed Elsa to lean on her as they walked together, the injured queen's left leg held carefully off the ground.

Elsa exhaled in relief. "Thank you."

It was snowing again, the wind billowing around them. Frost spread from Elsa's fingertips up Anna's shoulder, clinging to her cloak and the sleeve of her dress in crystals. She winced when the ice met her wound.

"So, did I tell you about my date with Kristoff?" Anna asked to get Elsa's mind off things. Of course she hadn't talked about her date. They'd been a little busy being, well, abducted. With her free hand Anna brushed her hair out of her face, as it had been loosed from her braids in the gale, and continued. "We tried to go eat somewhere in the town, but Kristoff always insists that Sven come with us. Try eating out with a giant reindeer sitting behind you, trying to steal your carrots! Kristoff told him to stop being greedy, and then somehow they both started laughing, and it ended up with the server covered head to toe in carrot mush. We were kicked out before we'd been there for fifteen minutes."

Elsa chuckled at that, and the winds surrounding them calmed a bit.

"Oh, and then we gave up on dinner and went for dessert instead somewhere else, but Kristoff offered Sven some of his dessert, and Sven got so excited that he accidentally bucked Kristoff right into the fjord. I had to fish him out by his sleeve and almost fell in myself!" Both girls laughed, a rosy glow coming back into Elsa's face, which had paled at the pain in her leg.

The frost on Anna's shoulder receded, and Elsa brushed the rest away. "Sorry about that," she said in reference to it, smiling lightly. "How's your shoulder?"

"I don't know. I think it's gone numb," Anna admitted. "How's your leg?"

Elsa pulled a face. "I'm starting to consider just cutting it off and being done with it."

"That's a little melodramatic," Anna snorted.

Behind them, a chorus of howls rent the air. Both girls froze, glancing back to see that the wolf pack was closing in on them again—and _fast_.

"Oh, yeah," Anna said. "I forgot about them."

They turned away from the ice slide and ran back down the bank. Anna kept a grip on Elsa and tried her best to keep her sister's injured leg from brushing the ground, but it proved impossible to do that and maintain her speed. Elsa stumbled after her, probably hurting her leg even worse, and they slid to the bottom of the snow bank. Elsa stumbled and fell to her knees. Anna helped her back up, once again acting as a brace.

"I don't think anything'll scare those wolves away except fire!" Anna said. Her heart was beating frantically, and she looked up to see that the wolves were much closer than they had been before.

"Do you know how to make a fire?" Elsa demanded.

"Um…" Anna glanced around until her gaze fell onto a nearby copse of trees. "Over there! Trees! Trees mean wood!"

"Yes, but can you actually _make _a fire?" Elsa asked even as Anna started dragging her toward them.

"One way to find out!" Anna said. She had a feeling she could. She'd read (er, skimmed) enough books about it during those long, lonely years in the nearly-empty castle. It couldn't be _that_ hard.

They reached the trees just as the wolves caught up to them again. Elsa shot out her hand toward them, giant ice spikes sprouting from the ground and jutting out at the wolves. Several would have been skewered if they hadn't skidded to a halt and backed away in time.

"Hold them off while I make a fire!" Anna said, releasing Elsa and running into the trees to gather wood. Elsa shouted a protest that Anna didn't hear, but no wolves barged through the trees so she must have been keeping them at bay. She scrabbled at the foot of the trees, finding fallen branches and shaking the snow off, hoping they'd be dry enough to make decent firewood. When she had a decent armful she returned to find Elsa resting most of her weight on her right leg as she stood, blocking each wolf that tried to break through to them with wall after wall of ice. Anna couldn't tell how many wolves there were—more than one person with a broken leg could handle for long, even with cool ice powers.

Elsa must have heard her come up, because she glanced over her shoulder and said in a desperate, warning tone, "_Anna—_"

"I know, I know, I'm hurrying!" Anna said, scraping away snow from a spot on the ground so she could dump the firewood there. Elsa waved her hand in her direction and the snow in which Anna knelt melted away in a ring, leaving a bare patch of dirt around her.

"Anna, I don't think this is a good idea!" Elsa said, turning her attention back to the wolves.

"Would you rather be eaten?" Anna snapped back. She winced. "Sorry. That came out sharper than I—just—please keep going. I'll try to get the fire started. Do you have a tinderbox? Or matches?"

Elsa ducked, sending up another sheet of ice to block one of the wolves trying to slip between a set of ice spires. "No!"

"Right, sorry!" Anna said. She searched around again and grabbed every flat rock she could find, bringing them back over to the wood. Quickly she took a rock in each hand and clacked them together several times. When nothing happened, she tried another pair, with the same result. "This isn't working! How are you supposed to start a fire with these things?!"

"Don't _you_ have matches?" Elsa asked.

Anna dropped the rocks and quickly felt through her pockets. "Aha! Yes!" She pulled out a little box of matches and struck one, dropping it on the pile of logs. "I knew that all along." She bent down and carefully blew on the tiny flame from the side. Little by little the flame blossomed into a larger fire and licked hungrily at the wood. Anna sat up with a jerk. "I've got it! I've got a fire!"

"Great!" Elsa called. "Now what?"

Now what, indeed? Anna had managed to make a fire but they had no way to carry it. She didn't know how to make a torch, and even if she did, she was pretty sure they didn't have the resources to do it. "Um, I'm working that out!"

Elsa backed up until she was almost next to Anna, bringing up a perimeter of ice around them and raising it upward so they were encircled by a transparent wall. Wolves surrounded it, scratching at the ice, some whining and some growling. Elsa looked back at Anna. Her eyes were wide and worried. "Well?"

"I don't know what to do now," Anna said helplessly. Elsa looked down at the crackling fire and frowned. Then she picked up an extra branch lying on the ground and caught the end on fire. She limped to the ice wall and, as she did, a hole opened up in front of her. A wolf immediately stuck its head through, snarling and snapping. Elsa plunged the flaming stick at its muzzle. The wolf screeched in pain, shooting backwards and licking its burnt nose. Whining, it backed away from the fight and looked like it wanted nothing more than to turn and run, though it didn't do so without the rest of the pack. Another wolf lunged up at the hole and Elsa gave it the same treatment before the fire on her stick traveled down too close to her hand and she dropped it, nudging it with her foot to ice it over and put out the fire. She closed up the hole in the wall, made her way back to the fire and picked up another couple of sticks, opening a new hole in a different spot on the wall.

"Come on, follow my lead," she said, handing Anna a stick. Anna took it, nodded, and set the tip alight in the fire. Soon both girls were feverishly attacking the wolves from within their icy fortress. The wolves returned to the holes again and again, though with less fervor each time, desperate to get at them.

Eventually, their fur singed and their snouts scorched, the wolves seemed to decide that prey that could attack with ice and fire just wasn't worth it. They turned and streaked away in the direction they had come, some with their tails between their legs.

"And don't come back!" Anna shouted after them, brandishing her fist. She turned back to her sister and grinned widely.

"We did it!" they both cheered, jumping into a hug that made them both cringe with pain due to their respective injuries. They hurriedly let go.

Anna grinned. "Elsa, you were amazing!" she said.

"Me? You're the one who made the fire! There's no way we would've gotten out of that mess without it."

Laughing with relief, they sagged against each other and watched the light wind blow snow flurries across the ground. After a few minutes had passed and the wolves did not return, Elsa brought the ice wall down, transforming it back into snow and spreading it across the ground. She then brought her hands together over the fire, forming a thick dome of ice over it and cutting it off from the air. The ice began to melt, though of course the dripping water only helped to put the flames out faster. Soon the fire died down to nothing but gray trails of smoke.

Elsa turned to her sister again, smiling. "Ready to go?"

"Definitely," Anna said. They stood next to each other and resumed the stance they had used before—Elsa's arm braced under Anna's left shoulder, Anna's hand resting on Elsa's right—and set off toward home as one unit.

* * *

"Queen Elsa! Princess Anna!"

Elsa and Anna raised their bowed heads, staring in shock as a pair of horses galloped toward them.

The horses pulled to a stop in front of them with a spray of snow and the two riders dismounted.

"Your Majesties! I'm so glad we found you!" one cried, sounding like she was about to burst into tears. It was Gerda—the other rider was Kai. Gerda looked like she wanted to pull both girls into a hug, though she refrained from doing so.

"Gerda!" Anna said, bouncing forward ecstatically. Elsa gasped as a stab of pain shot up her already-throbbing leg. Too bad the cold couldn't make _her_ injuries numb.

She looked up and addressed the servants, stepping forward. "Gerda, Kai," she said gratefully, her voice hoarse. "You came just in time. Anna's shoulder is injured."

"And I think Elsa's leg is broken," Anna added. Elsa glanced down at her leg, swallowing hard when she saw that it was swollen and bruised.

Gerda's hands flew to her mouth. Kai stepped forward, his eyes wide. "What happened?"

"It was Hans again," Elsa said as Gerda helped Anna onto one of the horses. "I'll explain later. How is Arendelle?"

"Arendelle is fine, just worried sick about you two," Gerda said. She sat astride her horse with Anna mounted behind her.

"I'm glad it's all right," Elsa said. She had only been gone for a few hours, but you could never be too careful. Kai got onto his horse and Elsa allowed him to help her up behind him, trying to jostle her leg as little as possible.

The horses left at a gallop. On the way back Elsa explained what had happened, with occasional interjections from Anna, and before long they arrived back at the walls of Arendelle. They rode through the streets, and slowed to a stop at the gates of the castle. The gates were closed but at the return of the queen and princess the servants opened them wide again. The riders dismounted and Anna automatically hurried to help Elsa walk without putting weight on her leg.

"We'll have to send out a party to search for Hans immediately," Kai was saying to someone behind them. "As well as his brother. This has gone too far. We should have imprisoned him here in the first place."

"I hope Hans never gets his sled back. I am so not getting _him_ a new one," Anna muttered. The corner of Elsa's mouth twitched up.

"Anna!" someone shouted. Kristoff ran up to them, throwing his beefy arms around Anna and nearly knocking both girls off-balance. He backed off immediately. "Sorry! Are you all right? What happened to you? What's this about Hans?"

"Um, we're all right, but we kind of have some, um, things, to take care of," Anna said. She cast Elsa a look that plainly said that she didn't want Kristoff to see her shoulder injury. Elsa moved her hand to try to cover the bandaged gash as best she could.

Kristoff moved out of the way, still looking worried. "Oh. Right. Sorry." Attempting a smile, he joked half-heartedly, "Hey, um, next time you decide to disappear without a trace in the middle of the night at least tell me first, okay?"

"It wasn't really my idea," Anna said, shrugging. "But it's sweet that you care so much!"

Kristoff grunted and tried to put on what Elsa could only assume was meant to be an aloof, uncaring expression. In a gruff voice he said, "Yeah, well, just making sure you're all right."

Elsa gently nudged Anna and they started hobbling toward the castle. Anna patted Kristoff's arm. "I'll see you later! Don't worry about us, okay?"

Kristoff didn't follow as they ambled into the castle, though he stared after them.

Once they had entered a corridor branching off the main entrance room and Elsa was sure they were out of earshot, she smiled mischievously at Anna. "You have my blessing now."

Anna glanced at her. "What?"

"For your marriage," Elsa said, tossing her hair. "With Kristoff. I give you my full blessing for when he asks you."

"Shut up!" Anna lightly swatted her arm. "He's not going to ask me to marry him."

"I get to plan the wedding. It'll be lovely. How do you feel about an ice theme?"

"Elsa!" Anna shrieked, and soon the sisters were giggling madly.

After a minute Anna broke off, hiccupping, and spoke more softly. "Hey, Elsa, I just wanted to say, you were incredible with Hans and the wolves back there," she said. "We never would've made it out without you. So, thank you."

"No, Anna," Elsa said, facing her again with sparkling eyes. "Thank _you_."

And she meant it.


End file.
